Optical computing devices can be used to analyze and monitor sample substances in real time. Such optical computing devices will often employ a light source that emits electromagnetic radiation that reflects from or is transmitted through the sample and optically interacts with an optical processing element to determine quantitative and/or qualitative values of one or more physical or chemical properties of the substance. The optical processing element may be, for example, an integrated computational element (“ICE”). An ICE can be an optical thin film interference device, also known as a multivariate optical element (“MOE”), which can be designed to operate over a continuum of wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum from the UV to mid-infrared ranges, or any sub-set of that region. Electromagnetic radiation that optically interacts with the sample substance is changed and processed by the MOE or other ICE so as to be measured by a detector, such that an output of the detector can be correlated to the physical or chemical property of the substance being analyzed.